This is your resource for exploring various topics in glass: delve deeper with this collection of articles, multimedia, and virtual books all about glass. Content is frequently added to the area, so check back for new items. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, send us your suggestion. If you have a specific question, Ask a Glass Question at our Rakow Research Library.

Smoothing the surface of an object when it is cold by holding it against a rotating wheel fed with a fine abrasive such as pumice or cerium oxide. Glass can also be polished with hand-held tools. polishes polished polish

A type of Art Glass developed by Joseph Locke (1846-1936) at the New England Glass Company and patented in 1885. Made of colorless glass, it was mold-blown repeatedly, partly etched and stained amber or rose, and decorated with blue and amber garlands of flowers and fruits. Pomona

The pontil, or punty, is a solid metal rod that is usually tipped with a wad of hot glass, then applied to the base of a vessel to hold it during manufacture. It often leaves an irregular or ring-shaped scar on the base when removed. This is called the “pontil mark.” pontils punty punties pontil

Glassware that has been blown into a mold whose interior has a raised pattern so that the object shows the pattern with a concavity on the inside, underlying the convexity on the outside. Pattern molds are not used to impart the final form to the object. pattern molded glass pattern mold glass

A type of Art Glass made by several American factories in the late 19th century. It resembled the peach bloom glaze on 17thto 18th-century Chinese porcelain such as the celebrated Morgan Vase. Most Peachblow glass had a surface that shaded from opaque cream to pink or red, sometimes over opaque

The process of pricking molten glass with a tool that leaves small, air-filled hollows. When the glass is covered with a second gather, the hollows become air traps. This technique is used to decorate knops and paperweights. peggings

(Italian, “dappled”) A type of decorated glass developed in 1950-1951 by Fulvio Bianconi (1915-1996) for Venini & C. of Murano. The object is covered with a patchwork of rectangles of different colors, created by placing sections of flattened canes side by side on a metal plate, heating the

A technique whereby a hot parison is rolled in chips of glass, which are picked up, marvered, and inflated. pick-up decorations pick up decorations pick up decorations Navajo Blanket Cylinder (Zig-Zag with Horse Drawing)

A term used by 19th-century English glassmakers to describe vessels with mold-blown vertical ribs but no corresponding indentations on the interior. This effect was achieved by partly inflating the gather, allowing it to cool sufficiently to become somewhat rigid, and then gathering an outer layer

(German, “pass glass”) A tall cylindrical drinking vessel with trailed or enameled horizontal marks. The drinker was supposed to gulp only enough to reach the next horizontal mark, and then pass the glass to the next person. If he drank too much, he was required to reach the next mark, and so on.

These terms and their French and Italian equivalents, pâte de verre and pasta vitrea, have been used since at least the 17th century to describe the composition of small objects such as medallions and imitations of precious stones. However, their use to describe such objects is incorrect (they were

(French, “glass paste”) A material produced by grinding glass into a fine powder, adding a binder to create a paste, and adding a fluxing medium to facilitate melting. The paste is brushed or tamped into a mold, dried, and fused by firing. After annealing, the object is removed from the mold and

A tall, narrow cylindrical vessel decorated at the top with stylized palm fronds. Flasks of this type were made by core forming in Egypt in the 18th and 19th Dynasties (about 1400-1250 B.C.). They were used as kohl tubes. palm column flasks palm-column flask palm-column flasks Flask Shaped like a

A small, heavy object designed to hold down loose papers. The first glass paperweights were made in the early 1840s in Venice and France, and their manufacture spread rapidly to other parts of Europe and the United States. Glass paperweights ceased to be fashionable in the early 20th century, but